In the summer of 2000, as part of my tree breeding and selection program, I selected a crabapple tree which I named ‘KW-31MX’ (unpatented). ‘KW-31MX’ was a green-leafed tree with white flowers which originated from open pollinated crabapple seed I had picked in the fall of 1994. ‘KW-31MX’ was a very promising tree, but I ultimately decided that it was not completely superior to existing commercial cultivars, so I decided to collect seed from it to continue my breeding line. I never introduced ‘KW-31MX’ and it was later destroyed. All of the above took place in a nursery in Boring, Oreg.
I collected open pollinated fruit from Malus ‘KW-31MX’ in the fall of 2000 and extracted seed and I sowed the seed in beds in the nursery in Boring, Oreg. The seed germinated in the spring of 2001 and grew well. In February of 2002, I dug the resulting seedlings and kept 404 of the most vigorous plants. In April of 2002, I transplanted these 404 open pollinated seedlings of ‘KW-31MX’ into another bed. During the spring and summer of 2002, I inoculated these seedlings with apple scab fungus and evaluated for resistance. In the fall of 2002, I marked the most promising 107 of these small trees which I dug, destroying the others. These 107 small trees were held in cold storage, then I transplanted the trees into a row in May 2003. I grew these trees in the nursery row for three seasons and evaluated them for form, flower quality, and disease resistance. In the fall of 2005, I marked the best 39 of these trees and destroyed the others. I dug these 39 trees and transplanted them into a nursery row on wider spacing in January, 2006. These 39 trees were evaluated for two more growing seasons, and by the fall of 2007 I had marked seven of these to be kept, destroying the others.
One of these seven trees is the subject of the current application and I named it ‘JFS KW139MX’. It was selected and named because it possessed an outstanding and unique combination of bright reddish purple flowers, reddish purple new foliage color, extremely small red fruit, strong disease resistance, and a desirable upright oval growth habit.
I dug the seven aforementioned trees and in February of 2008 and I planted them into a long term experimental evaluation block on wide spacing. Of these remaining seven trees that derived from the open pollinated seed of ‘KW-31MX’, the present invention ‘JFS KW139MX’ was the only tree with reddish purple colored flowers and reddish purple new foliage color. The other six trees all had white flowers and green foliage color and all were subsequently destroyed and were never patented or introduced as cultivars. All of the above trees were grown and selected in the same Boring, Oreg. nursery.
In the summers of 2007, 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2014, I collected propagating wood from the original ‘JFS KW139MX’ tree and directed asexual propagation by budding onto Malus rootstock in small experimental plots in a Canby, Oreg. nursery. This propagation resulted in 8, 10, 5, 8, and 8 trees, respectively. I evaluated these propagated trees in subsequent years and determined that these asexually propagated plants show that the characteristics of my new tree are firmly fixed and identical to my original tree in every manner that has been observed. Of these propagated trees, one was planted in a long term evaluation block in the Boring, Oreg. nursery in February 2013.